Even After Death
by 13 Little Numbers
Summary: What if Orochimaru's Reincarnation Jutsu could work from the afterlife? After saving a girl from near death, Sakura Haruno begins to dream of the underworld. She even begins to question whether or not they are just dreams...Could they be real? R&R plz!
1. The Forest of Fire

**A/N: So this is the very first naruto fanfiction I've ever written. I'm writing it for my own enjoyment so if you like it, that's great and feel free to tell me what you like, and if you don't, flame away. If you flame, it'll make no difference to me at all so have fun. Now in this I've added 2 OCs that belong to me. (Rie and Noriko). There will probably be one or two more OCs so if you have problems with them just don't read. There's going to be a main story told through the eyes of an OC about the other characters. (it's also set in the shippuden arc.) So I hope you enjoy, and if there's any spelling/grammatical errors in it please just let me know!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything related to it. As I stated in my note above, the only things I own are the OCs.**

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My eyes snapped open and I took in the sights around me. I was lying on my back, staring up at the branches of trees. But the trees were on fire.

I slowly sat up, for my body ached, though at the time I didn't know why. I gasped as I observed my surroundings. Everything was on fire. The trees, the ground, and even a shallow stream that ran nearby.

The grass beneath me was on fire. I ran my fingers through it and found it to be intangible.

"It…doesn't hurt?" I asked myself aloud. Though there was no pain or burning feeling in my fingers, the heat was there. The air around me was incredibly hot, and beads of sweat started to form on my forehead.

_Wait, that's not right. _I reached up to where my Konoha forehead protector should be. It wasn't there.

"Once you get here you become…origin less. Where you come from doesn't matter."

My head snapped up and I cringed. Moving quickly hurt. A lot. But my blood ran cold when I saw who it was. A man with long black hair was perched on the branch above my head, and his voice cut deep into me, just as it had the last time I'd run into him.

"You're Orochimaru." I tried to move, but I was frozen in place.

"Hmhmhm. You do not need to be afraid my dear. There's nothing I can do to you in this place."

I was still afraid, but his words gave me some courage. I got to my feet and stared up at him, "and what is this place exactly?"

He smiled a sickening grin before vanishing. My eyes darted around, searching for him. Then, a breath hotter than the air around me touched the back of my neck.

I spun around to be face to face with him. I stumbled backwards as he laughed.

"Rie-chan ignore him." I looked up again and this time there was a girl in the trees. She had long brown hair and wore an outfit that was all black save the red netting that made up the sleeves. Traditional shoes sat on her feet.

"Noriko?" I whispered as she leapt down to stand beside me.

"Yup. It's been a while, eh Rie?"

I looked at the girl standing beside me. I felt like I was going to cry, but no tears came. The girl beside me, Noriko, she was my old partner back when we were Chunin. Back when she was alive.

Noriko died while we were on a mission through the Land of the Rice Fields. We had stumbled upon the Village Hidden in the Sound. With the village came Orochimaru, and with Orochimaru came Noriko's death.

She was older than me by several years, and her strength as a ninja was far greater than mine, yet she treated me as her equal.

"Another reunion. Seems like they're getting more and more popular." Orochimaru spat.

"More people are dying thanks to that Akatsuki organization that_ you_were a part of if I remember correctly." Noriko countered.

Noriko was speaking freely, and she wasn't afraid. I figured that if she was not frightened, there was no reason for me to be.

"You never answered my question." I said turning to Orochimaru.

"Some call it the second Land of Fire. But most of us refer to it as Hell." He slowly began to fade after he had finished speaking.

"Noriko-san, he's…disappearing."

A loud laugh echoed through out the forest as he vanished all together. The laugh resounded over and over again, and it lingered for a long time after Orochimaru was gone.

I still watched the spot where he had been, just in case he was going to come back, but after a few minutes I was convinced that he was gone. I turned to talk to Noriko, to see her walking further and further away from me through the forest of fire.

"Noriko! Wait!" I ran after her to catch up,

"Sup?" She said as I fell in step next to her. I looked at her for a few seconds before responding.

"You're still the same aren't you?" I asked thinking about the way she was before.

"Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I have to change, silly Rice."

I laughed and she did too. The first time we had been introduced the sensei said my name wrong, and it sounded like he had said "rice." It was Noriko's nickname for me.

"Are things going to be like back when we were alive?" My thoughts wandered to when we were still a team, and she didn't say anything for a while. Silent flames leapt up around us, nipping at our ankles. Sparks fell onto my head, and for the first few minutes of our walk I cringed, expecting a sharp pain wherever the spark landed. After a while though I got used to the fire not hurting.

"Rie-chan, I'm going to tell you this now. You're here forever. Our past lives hardly matter at all, so you have to accept living here. Promise me you'll try your hardest to forget about that life. I've seen people become obsessed with their past lives, and that's driven them to the lowest social level of this society."

I blinked before responding, "Alright."

"Ha, you're still a little bewildered and out of it I can see. That'll go away eventually too. I guess you're still not one hundred percent dead."

She stopped to look at me, her eyes widened, and then a sad look came over he face.

"Oh, you're disappearing." She turned away and kept walking. I followed after.

"What do you mean I'm disappearing?" I was shocked and confused. Everything was coming at me way too quickly. I was dead. I was in Hell. My old partner was in Hell. Orochimaru was in Hell. There _was _a Hell. Apparently I wasn't 100% dead yet. Apparently I was disappearing.

"You're being brought back to life. Someone's saving you. Why you came to Hell in the first place I don't know, but you will have time to correct whatever it was that you have done. Correct it Rie. Correct it so that you don't have to end up here."

I looked down at my hands and gasped. I was disappearing. Though it was unlike when Orochimaru had faded away. I was more of, disintegrating I guess you'd call it. We stood in silence as my fingers disappeared, and then my hands, and eventually it started to work its way up my arms. Eventually I could tell that the only thing left was my head.

"Noriko…why are you here? What did you do that made you come here? You were such an amazing person…" I got cut off as my mouth disappeared.

Noriko smiled and then said, "Goodbye Rie. I hope we never meet again."

I felt my physical being in Hell completely evaporate and then it was just my thoughts in a dark place. I saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing. But I could think.

I focused my thoughts on Noriko's words, '_Goodbye Rie. I hope we never meet again.'_

I guess it was a good thing, that she hoped for what she did. For if we did see each other again that would mean that I wasn't able to correct my wrongdoings.

Suddenly, I heard something, and I saw a dim light. The sound grew louder, and the light brighter, until I could make out the words and the sun seemed to be shining once again.

"Rie. Rie-chan. Rie can you hear me?"

Physical feelings came to me. It was warm, but not quite as warm when I had been in Hell. There was a sweet scent of cherry blossoms, and I felt warm and safe.

My eyes opened, and looking down at me was a girl with short, shoulder length pink hair. She had a huge grin on her face.

"Lady Hokage! She's awake." The girl called as her face withdrew from my view. I lifted my head from the pillow and looked at where I was. A small room that had lots of medical herbs and bandages on the several rows of shelves. The bed I was lying on was white and pushed up against a window. I slowly sat up and peered out the window. A feeling of relief washed over me. The buildings of my home greeted my sight. I was back in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

"Well well. Looks like you pulled through after all." I turned to see a lady with long blond hair and calm green eyes standing in the doorway.

"Lady Tsunadae…What happened to me?" Visions of Noriko and Orochimaru were still fresh and vivid in my mind.

"You had a bad run in with some rogue ninjas just outside the village borders. They had some pretty potent poison with them and you got quite a large dose of it." She replied with a smile on her face.

"O-oh." I stuttered, frowning.

"Haha why frown? You're alive! You should be smiling." Sakura said as she stepped closer to me and held out a glass of water. I drank it quickly and then thanked her.

"I guess I'm still just kind of out of it. Could I maybe sleep for a bit?"

Tsunadae smiled, "Sure. Sakura watch her for a bit to make sure she stays stable will you?" She then left the room, sliding the door shut tight behind her.

Sakura sat down at a small table by the side of the room.

"What's up?" She said as she looked at me.

"Nothing really…"

"I don't believe you. You're not one to be in a sad mood right now. You'd normally be grateful to be alive. What happened before the run in with the rouges?"

"I don't remember all that much about it. Now that you mention the rouges, I remember the face of the guy that hit me with the poison dart but…other than that it's all really fuzzy." I told her as I recalled a few bits of the information. I was debating telling her about the whole Hell incident.

"Well there must have been something…" She looked puzzled, and I decided to tell her.

"Well…what's made me a little upset is that while the poison was in my body…I think…I think I died."

She looked even more puzzled, so I explained to her what had happened. I told her all about the fire, and Orochimaru, and about Noriko. Her face fell when I mentioned Noriko. In the few months that they had known each other they had gotten to be great friends.

"I think the poison had something to do with it." She immediately started writing things down.

"Who is or was your closest friend?"

"Noriko was." I said with out hesitation.

"What do or did you fear the most in life?"

"Orochimaru." I didn't need to think twice about that one either.

"So my guess is that the poison also has a mental effect as well as a physical one. It took your greatest fear and the thing you care about the most and put it together. The setting it was in, Hell, was probably you yourself thinking that death had claimed you."

I nodded. That actually made a lot of sense to me. But then something else occurred to me.

"What about the last stuff Noriko told me? The stuff about how I needed to correct my wrongdoings and that she never wanted to see me again?"

Sakura sat silently for a few minutes, thinking about what I had asked. After what seemed like forever, she spoke.

"Rie-chan…do you feel responsible for Noriko's death at all?"

I bit down hard on my lip, and the metallic taste of blood flooded over my senses.

"Rie! Stop! It's fine. I'm sorry I asked." She said as she grabbed a cloth and helped to clean my lip. I drank some more water.

Sakura stood beside me for a long while. She knew. I knew that she had figured out that I still blamed myself for Noriko's death.

"Listen. When I was younger, I felt that I couldn't do anything to help my team. I was always screwing things up, or getting in the way. When…a member of my team almost died, I blamed myself, but it wasn't my fault in the end. Noriko's death wasn't your fault. I don't think anyone could have prevented it." With that she left.

"I guess my condition's stable enough…" I mumbled to myself.

I laid back down to think of everything that had happened, trying to come to grips with the situation. My mind needed to accept the fact that Noriko's death wasn't my fault, she was most likely in a good place, and all that had happened was just in my head.

I sighed as I leaned back onto my pillow, and I attempted to sleep.

Strangely enough, with all of the thoughts running through my head, I was sleeping with in the next three minutes.


	2. Doubting Reality

**A/N: So I wrote a second chapter! I had a lot of fun writing this...read and review! Other than that, I hope you enjoy!**

A flash of red. A flash of black. A flash of orange. A flash of brown

There was fire in the trees. There was a girl, and there was a man. The girl was lying on the ground with a gash in her stomach. The man was standing and staring down at her.

"N-Noriko?" The pink haired girl said as she watched. The girl didn't stir.

An evil, insane laugh filled the air, and the man turned his head towards her.

The pink haired girl stood still and stared right into the thin slits that were the man's pupils. His laugh resounded over and over again, though he never opened his mouth.

If he had, the girl that stood watching him already knew what she'd see. There would be two sharp teeth, two fangs, and memories of her past would come to haunt her once again.

Suddenly, the man was right in front of her, his eyes mere inches away from her own…

Sakura woke with a start. There were beads of sweat on her forehead that she quickly wiped away. Glancing around the room she found that she was still in Konoha and not where ever her dream had taken place.

It had seemed so real, the dream of hers. She could almost feel the heat of the fire, smell the scent of death, and if she had reached out it was almost as if she could touch the clothes of Orochimaru.

She shook her head at the crazy notion that it had been real. It was a dream and nothing more.

Sakura sighed and stood up out of bed. The sun was coming over the trees anyway, so she figured she might as well get ready for her daily activities.

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What Sakura didn't know was that her dream was really a vision of another world.

Noriko had called out to her, had tried to show her that the Hell she was trapped in was real. But Orochimaru had stopped her before she could complete the summons.

There was a single rule in Hell: If you end up in Hell with your killer, you are sentenced to an eternal battle between the two of you. You are able to cause physical and mental pain to your killer or victim. It's almost as if you were alive again.

That's what happened to Noriko. She had been in the middle of a life summoning, which was something special that only those in the afterlife could use, when Orochimaru showed up and ended her. Again.

Noriko didn't keep count, but he had killed her nearly twenty times during her "life" in Hell.

So, as she lie there, completely aware that Sakura was watching, she felt helpless. There was nothing that she could do. She was technically dead twice over, and she didn't exist anywhere for a few moments before she felt the warmth of the fire again.

As soon as she did she leapt to her feet and ran towards the village where everyone lived. She needed help to make Sakura understand.

Orochimaru was preparing for an event. A certain event that he had been trying to put together ever since his death, and the problem was that it was going to work.

He had described it all to her after Rie left. The warm breath that Rie had felt was not just air. She was not fully dead, so she had not been able to feel any pain from the Hell realm.

A circle of three triangles sat on the back of Rie's neck, and the curse mark would not act up until the day of Orochimaru's death anniversary. When that happened, he was going to attempt a Reincarnation Jutsu. If things went as he planned, he would inhabit Rie's body, and would be alive once again. He would activate the summons himself, but the problem with that was that Noriko had no idea _when _he was going to activate it.

Even after death he could strike fear into people, and Noriko would do whatever it took to make sure that he wasn't reincarnated. It would most likely mean many deaths, including that of Rie, whom Noriko thought of as a little sister. She felt obligated to protect her at all costs. In fact, that's how she had died.

Since Sakura was gone and she was not yet strong enough to try to summon her again, she needed help. Most of the people there were quite unwilling to help her, as should be expected. It was Hell after all.

There were a few people however; people like Noriko who didn't actually deserve to be there. People who had lived bad lives while harboring good intentions. Some of the people had always had good intentions, yet others were transformed right before their death.

Those were the people that Noriko spent most of her time with; those were the people she was going to for help.

As she raced towards the village, she wondered where she'd find them. They would most likely be in the library, so she would go there first.

When she sped through the village streets no one asked where she was going; they just moved out of her way. Noriko speeding through the village was a common occurrence.

One time there had been a newbie, and she had accidentally smashed into them. Ever since then she had been a little more careful.

The library sat at the very end of the village road, and it loomed over the rest of the buildings.

Noriko raced through the front doors and past the old librarian. Towards the back of the building there was a special room which only a few people had access too. It was there that Noriko expected to find her "friends."

She reached the door to the back room and stood there for a moment, catching her breath. Before entering, she took a deep breath. She slid the door open.

The room inside was dark save a few candles that were lit in the back of the room. Two people sat inside, each of them reading through scrolls. They looked up at Noriko expectantly.

She took another deep breath, "Konan, Itachi. I need your help."

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Sakura wandered through the streets, looking up at the sky and not paying much attention to the ground. Since she was looking upwards, she didn't see the young boy who was picking up a kunai that he had dropped. She tripped over him and fell onto her stomach.

"What the-? Oh. It's you Konohamaru." Sakura said as she brushed herself off and stood up.

"Hey Sakura. Aren't you supposed to be at the hospital?" He asked her as he too stood up.

"I went for a little walk is all." She said as she smiled down at him.

"Oh cool. How's Naruto? I haven't seen him in a while!" He asked.

"Um good question. I haven't seen him all day. Why don't you go look for him?" She suggested. Konohamaru nodded and started off down the road.

Before he was out of sight he turned around and yelled, "Oh Lady Hokage was looking for you! She passed me a few minutes ago. Said something about Rie."

"Ok thanks." She called back. She then spun around and headed back towards the hospital. She hadn't been told to check up on Rie all day, but she had been planning to visit her after dinner that night.

A few minutes later she was entering Rie's room and Rie was lying on her bed, seemingly asleep.

"Rie?" She said softly. The girl's eyes fluttered open.

"Hey Sakura." She said quietly. Rie didn't even look over at her, but kept her eyes trained on the ceiling.

"Is everything okay?" Sakura asked, concerned.

"I-I feel really tired and…I had a dream last night. I was back in Hell and Noriko was…Orochimaru was there and Noriko…her body…" Rie shuddered. Sakura rushed over and pulled the seat closer to the bed.

"I know it's hard, but tell me everything." Sakura said quietly.

Rie nodded, "Noriko was lying there, dead. There was a nasty wound in her stomach and Orochimaru was standing over her body. He laughed but…he never opened his mouth at all. I woke up right after that."

Sakura started chewing on her lip. From the explanation that Rie had given, it seemed that their dreams had been identical.

"That sounds exactly like mine." Sakura said aloud. She looked at Rie, who was definitely in a bad condition. Her eyes were glazed over, and her eyelids drooped.

Sakura decided not to tell her about the part when Orochimaru flashed right in front of her face.

"But you said that mine was an effect of the poison. How could you have the same dream?" Rie questioned, which was the exact same question that was running through Sakura's head.

"Unless…unless it's real." Sakura muttered to herself.

"What was that? Sorry I'm not listening very closely…"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Sakura responded. Sakura never looked away from Rie, who just stared at the ceiling. All of a sudden Rie's eyes widened. She let out a scream.

"Rie!" Sakura leapt up from the seat. Rie curled into a ball and continued screaming. She was obviously in pain.

"Lady Hokage!" Sakura yelled as loud as she could. She would go to get her, but she didn't want to leave Rie's side.

Luckily, Tsunadae hadn't been too far away. She burst through the door.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Rie. There's something wrong with her."

Tsunadae ran over to the table with all of the medicines and grabbed several different herbs. She smashed them together and added them to water before racing over to Rie.

"Drink." She commanded.

Rie was able to suppress the pain long enough to get a few drops of the medicine, and soon she was asleep.

"To help her deal with it, and to allow her body to fight full force against the pain, correct malady?"

Tsunadae nodded and went back over to the table with all of the medicine.

Sakura continued watching, feeling confused and afraid. Rie was shivering and shaking while she lay there. The pain attack was random and uncalled for. By the look on Tsunadae's face Sakura guessed that she had no idea as to what was causing the pain.

It's not like the poison that Rie had had in her blood was unknown.

There was only one other time that Sakura had seen someone act that way. That one day when Sasuke's fate had truly been sealed, and Orochimaru had "bestowed" his curse mark upon him.

Sasuke's reaction to it had been the same as what was happening to Rie. What if she has a curse mark, Sakura thought with horror. Then she sighed with relief and almost laughed aloud. Orochimaru was dead. There was no way that Rie had a curse mark.

Although, there were the two dreams…Sakura almost laughed again. That entire realm of Hell that both she and Rie had seen in their dreams was not real….

Or…was it?


End file.
